Dutch Ships of the Golden Age

this episode of the history guide brought to you by magellan tv and their new release tobago 1677. in the 17th century the dutch republic or more formally the republic of the united seven netherlands was the envy of all of europe described by history and richard unger as the most prosperous economy in europe and probably the world at the time the dutch golden age when the tiny republic dominated world trade was built on the back of her merchant fleet the largest in the world and her shipbuilders whose skills exceeded the other european powers the ships that fueled the dutch miracle our history that deserve to be remembered but before we go any further i'd like to recommend the extraordinary documentary tobago 1677 that you can stream on magellan tv i know that many of you are already magellan subscribers and tobago 1677 is a good reason why i loved tobago 1677 for a number of reasons but most of all because it demonstrates all the reasons that i love history and why i produce the history guy it is a quintessential example of little-known history that deserves to be remembered tobago 1677 deals with a little known aspect of the six-year-long franco-dutch war the dutch defense of their colony in what is now the island nation of trinidad and tobago the documentary combines first-hand accounts stunning reenactments in the current efforts to document the battles in scarborough harbor through modern archaeology and of course so this came from the world empire that was the result of the shipbuilding that's the topic of today's episode of the history guy if you love the history guy then you'll probably love tobago 1677 and the amazing thing is that magellan tv which already has more than 3 000 documentaries adds documentaries like tobago 1677 every week it's a compelling reason to continue watching magellan tv and if you haven't already signed up for this extraordinary streaming service that is run by documentary filmmakers then gosh why not take advantage of a special offer of a one month free trial by clicking on the link in the description and after you do check out tobago 1677. from approximately the middle of the 15th century the area called the netherlands became unified under first the dukes of burgundy and then after mary of valois the last duchess of burgundy married maximilian the first of habsburg is part of the far-flung european habsburg empire under mary's grandson charles the empire extended to include territory from germany to italy as well as spain then a world power due to their colonization in the americas the imperial states of the habsburg netherlands were called the 17 provinces covering the nations now generally referred to as the low countries the netherlands belgium and luxembourg the unwieldy habsburg empire faced constant threats both internally and externally including significant resistance in the province of fry's land one of the 17 provinces the 17 provinces were even prior to the empire relatively entrepreneurial part of amsterdam was one of the most important ports in europe dominating the grade trade in the baltic region this created something of a problem for the habsburgs the 17 provinces were known for being independent-minded taking actions without imperial permission most notably they were relatively tolerant of protestantism especially calvinism which was spreading from northern europe in the 16th century protestant areas were important trading partners and in a society based on trade freedom and religious tolerance were well good for business but charles v and later his son philip ii were ardent catholics who saw their role as being a bulwark against the growth of the heresy of protestantism moreover the empire was nearly constantly at war including the habsburg beloi wars in italy and the ottoman hatred wars in the mediterranean the emperor taxed the 17 provinces using their wealth from trade to finance far-flung wars from which the people of the provinces benefited little in fact the war sometimes occurred against their trading partners finally both charles and phillip attempted to improve efficiency in the empire by centralizing power a move that offended the relatively independent-minded 17 provinces where merchants and guilds held almost as much power as a traditional aristocracy what had been tension under charles became open rebellion under philip the dutch rebellion was a conflict between spain and the 17 provinces that became embroiled in greater european politics transforming into what became known as the 80 years war or the dutch war for independence in the end the habsburgs were able to retake and maintain control of the southern provinces but the seven northern provinces were able to resist forming the republic of the seven united netherlands or the dutch republic in 1581 although the republic would not be formally recognized until the end of the 30 years war and the 1648 piece of muenster the dutch republic was small and urban with a population of just one and a half million population of france at the time by comparison was 18 million and it was extraordinary born from a devastating war the tiny dutch republic would become the most prosperous nation in all of europe a center of commerce science and art it would produce a golden age of art that included rembrandt von rein and johannes vermeer a philosophy including rene descartes and exiled englishman john locke and science including antoine philippe von luenholk generally acknowledged to be the inventor of the microscope and astronomer christian hugens who made many improvements on the telescope discovered the rings of saturn and invented the pendulum clock as well as prolific cartographers willem and john blau but the driving force behind all of this was trade and the dutch merchant fleet which eventually included more than 2 000 ships more than the fleets of england and france combined nearly half of the ships in all of europe historian richard unger explains the golden century saw a prodigious expansion in all phases of the economy though agriculture enjoyed considerable improvement the growth in output and employment was based heavily on commerce it was trade goods carried on dutch ships which was the source of the prominence of the northern netherlands on the economic stage of europe dutch ship design and construction were the envy of 17th century europe the fleet was not just the source of the trading and military power of the dutch republic but it allowed the republic to establish a powerful empire the website that the dutch maritime museum explains thanks to shipping trade with the dutch east indies flourished the dutch east india company was founded in amsterdam developed into the warehouse of the world goods from all corners of the world came to amsterdam and were traded here for lots of money there are many explanations for this extraordinary period in dutch and european history relative religious tolerance fostered free thought the 80 years war had created religious refugees with catholics moving to the southern provinces and protestants moving to the north the so-called protestant work ethic which emphasized savings in education as seen by some historians as an underpinning of the dutch golden age others note that the netherlands had a long history of trade going back to the period when textile manufacturers in the netherlands had produced the best cloth in all of europe and the dominance of the grain trade richard unger argues that much of the dutch dominance in shipbuilding and cartography came from portugal ironically from the period when both were connected via the habsburg empire the technology then flourished in the netherlands beyond the relatively restricted catholic portugal certainly a great part of the story of the grand dutch fleet owes itself to a man who described himself as a poor farmer with wife and children in 1594 cornelius corneal zun a van ootkiest a farmer who had married a miller's daughter built a windmill-powered sawmill the ingenious device used a crankshaft to transfer the circular motion of a windmill into a sawing motion that also used a rack and pinion crankshaft to advance the log his patrock molin or post mill was a game changer as the design website core 77 explains the importance of the wind powered sawmill taking off in the netherlands cannot be understated wood production didn't double triple or quadruple it grew by a factor of thirty or three thousand percent it was all in the time savings using the pit some method sawyers could process sixty logs over a span of 120 days using a wind powered sawmill they could break down 60 logs in four or five days what used to take four months now took less than a week the unique nature of the dutch republic allowed a revolution in shipbuilding the dutch understood trade and so built a different kind of ship most european powers at the time expected their merchant ships to be easily convertible to warships a january 1930 issue of the economic history review notes how the reasoning applied in england there were practical considerations the king's sleep might be destroyed in which case the duty of defending the kingdom might revert to the merchantmen the system was reinforced by policy the journal continues by navigation acts giving preference from monopolies to english shipping by bonuses to the builders of ships of force by remissions of customs duties by prohibitions to sell ships of fighting capacity by penalties to such masters as would surrender their ships without fighting and finally by much reiteration english ships were reminded of their patriotic duty to build large and defensible ships but the cost of this policy was simple heavier ships with their greater width above the water line had smaller holes that could carry less cargo and yet were more expensive to build the dutch saw things differently in the 16th century they developed the flout the website maritime logistics professional explains previously ships tended to be built to perform the dual role of fighting battles and carrying cargo thus their construction was fairly robust they carried cannons ammunition and combat personnel the dutch did away with that the flute was lightly constructed carried only sufficient armament to fend off pirates and the entire crew was working sailors to maximize cargo capacity while minimizing crew size the main deck was relatively small but the hole bulged out on the sides creating a fat bottomed or pear-shaped cross-section the flat was relatively slow but made up for the lack of speed with much greater cargo capacity maritime logistics professionals continues typically about 80 feet in length they operated with a crew of about 35 men they could carry twice the cargo of their counterparts at half the cost this reduced cost was combined with a greater efficiency that came from the nature of the dutch republic an empire built on trade that avoided many of the tariffs and bureaucratic limits of their competitors dr donald harold of brigham young university expounds the ability of dutch shippers to effectively compete with entrenched merchants like the hanseatic league in the baltic or the portuguese in asia stem from their cost cutting strategies not encumbered by the cost and protective restrictions of most merchant groups of the 16th century the dutch trimmed their costs enough to undercut the competition and eventually establish what jonathan israel has called world primacy the economic history review notes for example that because capital was abundant in the republic dutch merchants could borrow money at customary rates of three and a half to four percent in england the legal rate was six percent but because the crown often borrowed at much higher rates it could be much higher 10 percent or more english shipwright charles de vant complained in 1699 that high rates drove english merchants to care not to deal in any but rich commodities it is the bulky goods whose returns are not such great profit that breed most seamen and are the most nationally gainful but such goods cannot be very much dealt in where interest is high moreover the economic history review writes that the dutch benefited from a central location along rivers and the plentiful capital the trading center of amsterdam the chief producing regions were norway germany and the baltic regions for all naval commodities the dutch were far and away the best customers the merchants made large purchases at the season when prices were lowest paid punctually in goods in reeks dollars or in bills of exchange on amsterdam and allowed generous credit in their dealings with native merchants in fact the review argues that dutch foreign investments and trading partnerships often allow dutch ship rights to acquire norwegian mass and timber at lower rates than could be acquired by norwegian shipwrights the dutch could simply build and operate their ships much more cheaply than their competitors even though they were paying their tradesmen and workers more the result is that dutch merchants were simply able to out-compete other nations underselling them british diplomat sir george downing complained in four are english ships they are rather tubs than ships i do not know of anything more worthy for his majesty in the duke of york in point of trade than to force those that trade from london to norway and the baltic to employ our own shipping and put upon them the building merely for bulk without any guns steerage or roundhouse whereby she may carry a great deal and be sailed with a few men he goes on the question here is whether it's not better to have ships of our own though without guns and your own semen employed than to have foreign chips and semen employed but both the english crown and conservative english shipwrights were reticent to change and tried to control the competition through policy when england passed the navigation acts in 1660 their goal was to exclude foreign trade via tariffs the result was to limit the sort of bulk cargo that the dutch ships could carry english merchants became uncompetitive in the baltic and ironically the cost of timber a bulk item used for building ships skyrocketed as the foreign bulk carrier ships that carried timber were subject to the taxes prescribed in the act by contrast the economic history review notes the number and excellence of the merchant ships belonging at this time to the maritime provinces of the netherlands were marvelous in the eyes of all europeans astonishing even to the dutch themselves this was particularly ironic given that dutch harbors were shallow and tended to freeze fully in winter the review continues it was an englishman observed such a spot as if god had reserved it as a place only did he turf out of yet this was the land that by popular count launched a thousand ships a year and sent them out on giant errands through all the seas of the world but it wasn't just those flouts that allowed the dutch to dominate world trade those flouts were good and steady vessels and say the baltic trade but to dominate the worldwide spice trade the dutch needed heavier built ships but one of the strengths of dutch shipbuilders at the time was that they had a greater ability to innovate and specialize and evidence comes from one of the most notorious shipwrecks in history the batavia was a dutch east india man a ship built for the trade to the far east launched in 1629. a conflict between the master merchant and the ship captain resulted in a plan to take the ship off course in the hopes of causing a mutiny that would allow them to steal the ship the attempt resulted in the ship striking a reef off western australia the plight of the survivors is a harrowing tale where the former captain and a small band conspired to murder 110 of the ship's survivors many of them women and children when ships arrived for rescue the mutineers were captured tried and either hanged or tortured two were deliberately marooned making them the first europeans to permanently live on the australian continent while the gruesome story of the batavia haunts history the remains of the shipwreck has allowed archaeologists to determine the shipbuilding techniques that allowed the dutch republic to dominate the indian spice trade the ship was built using a time-consuming method called double planking that allowed the ship to keep the cargo dry dutch ships of the golden age were of such quality that their quality alone caused wars dr unger explains oliver cromwell in england once in power after the deposition and execution of king charles the first in 1651 took his country into the first of three wars against the dutch republic the goal was to undermine dutch commerce and to capture dutch ships so that those prizes could be incorporated into the english merchant marine while england eventually largely prevailed in the four anglo-dutch wars the dutch often held their own their well-constructed merchant ships did not prevent them from building successful warships while they were hampered by smaller ships owing to their shallower harbors they made up for it in greater numbers the golden age of the dutch republic only lasted for about a century its decline began in 1672 called the disaster year when during the franco-dutch war much of the republic was overrun the republic would recover but its economic position was never the same and continued to decline due to the cost of participation in the war of spanish succession and then the war of austrian succession it would not be fair to call the dutch republic a truly modern republic yup de young of maastricht university described it as a mix of old and new and yet professor young argues that the republic in a sense relative to the times had unique values including protection of the rights of the individual the influential voice of its citizens pragmatic tolerance towards other religions in an age of religious hatred and civil war and a political system and culture based on consultation persuasion compromise and trust that is to say that the golden age of the dutch republic represented sort of a proto model for many of the ideas that were the foundation of the modern world and it was seen as an inspiration for many of the liberal movements of the 18th century including for a young republic called the united states and the strength of those ideas showed in a fleet that in its time marveled the world i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guide short snippets of forgotten history and if you did enjoy feed the algorithm by making a comment or clicking that like button if you have suggestions for future episodes please send those to our suggestions email box check out our webpage at thehistoryguy.net and of course we're on facebook instagram and twitter you can book a special message from the history guy on cameo and check out our merchandise teespring.com and if you'd like more episodes of forgotten history 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 188,355

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, dutch republic, maritime history, economic history, holland, dutch golden age, european history

Id: n_8rx0na7Nk

Length: 18min 14sec (1094 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 08 2021